Got Beard?
Trypticon Medical Bay Several operating tables are set in a row here, and long benches line the walls. On these benches are assorted tools and equipment used in repairing damaged Decepticons. The benches near the door are for patients waiting their turn for treatment. Scattered throughout the room are various repair droids, awaiting the arrival of more wounded to repair. The room gives you the perception of being immaculately clean, with not a single tool out of place. Your olfactory sensors pick up the faint odor of the cleansing solutions used to keep the room clean and sanitary. Contrail walks into the medical ward wearing a DARK TREE costume and covered in swamp muck. Just let that sink in for a moment. She looks around shiftily, branches rustling, as she tries to see if the place is busy or not. If it is busy, Contrail can come back... never. Trypticon's Medical Bay is more or less deserted, most troops already having recieved their fixings with the Olympics coming around the bend; medical staff has packed up for the most part and deployed to the Swordfish or other Olympic areas for duty. Again, more or less deserted. The Seeker simpleton, Backfire, is seated on one of the slabs.. leaned back while the Decepticon armorer Forge finishes up some work. "That should sufficiently finish the mending, Backfire." he muses, soddering one last connection and shutting the arm compartment. "Though don't you find it unnerving to have your former master's armor melded to your own?" he inquires, packing up his tools. "Unnerving for the enemies of the EMPIRE, you mean?" Backfire barks, rising up to a sitting position. "Yes, of course.. that is what you meant. When the Autobots get a taste of my -new- power, well.." the Seeker trails, "You won't believe the things I can do now!" His head cranes over to Contrail, then her attire. Avarice is standing in the shadow in a corner of the medical bay, still hooked to an experimental machine that supposed to help him to control his powers. Just by the look of fustration on his face, someone looking at him could tell that it's not working as intended. The sweep seems pretty concentrated and does not pay much attention to his surrounding. Contrail considers the contents of the medical ward. There's Backfire and a gumby. There's... some Sweep in a dark corner, having... some kind of problem? She decides to risk it and tries to sneak over to the cabinet of solvents and soaps. Yeah, nothing to see here, just a tree wandering around. "By Starscream's ghost!" Backfire shouts, getting up off the table and rushing over towards Contrail. "EVERYONE, GET DOWN!" he barks heroically at the Sweep, whom he doesn't know by name. Though apparently he was fighting alongside him a couple of cycles ago. "Foul organic creature of the wastelands!" Backfire rasps, raising his new Fool Fusion Cannon and charging up a shot. "I shan't let you sully our medical supplies while the others are gone, for the EMPIRE!" Avarice may be busy but it would be difficult to ignore Backfire's reaction. He instantly react, drawing his pistol from a subspace pocket and ... realizing that there is no organic creature anywhere around but rather a... rather dirty Decepticon. "While you're here, why don't you get your optics checked?" he snarls at the seeker, "Can't you recognize a decepticon when you see one?" "Don't you see it?" Backfire shouts, "It's one of the dreaded.. DARK TREES!"" Contrail throws her hands up and protests, "By Straxus, Backfire, it's me! - er, Contrail. In a DARK TREE suit. Because... because." She looks around, still looking shifty, and she opens up the cabinet and grabs the bottle of Goo Gone. Need to get this costume unglued from her armour. Avarice frowns, "Dark Trees?". He ponders for a moment, "Never heard about those." He glances towards the "Dark Tree", "I doubt Contrail is one of them...though I would really like to know why she's disguised like that..." Head turning to the side, Backfire looks back at Avarice.. then to Contrail.. then back to Avarice.. finally settling on Contrail and the tree costume. "Fine, if this dreaded enemy of Lord Galvatron sullies our stores and takes over Trypticon.." he sneers, lowering his weapon and powering it down. "Let it be on your head, Bloodwulf." he points accusingly, retaking his seat on the medical slab. "You are Bloodwulf, right? Or Dredclaw? GAH, I can never tell.. why don't you guys paint your names on your chests or something??" "I think they want us to make the effort of learning their speech patterns," Contrail speculates, "Scourge says his 's's different, right? So I don't think he's Scourge. Pretty sure." She uses the Goo Gone to peel off the tree helmet, and she sets that aside. Now she's a tree with a robot head. It is not the first times Avarice is mistaken for one of his fellow sweep, "Perhaps I am Scourge?" he says with a threatening voice as he steps forward. He glances towards Contrail and adds, "You should workon your observation skills. Lord Galvatron would be pretty disappointed to learn that the commanding officer of Intelligence is unable to tell a sweep appart from another." "I mean, Scourge is easier to spot.. he's like bigger, and his beard is totally sick." Backfire continues to ramble, "I mean.. ugh, if you're into facial hair." his head checks around to see if anyone is paying attention. "Wait, Contrail.. did a DARK TREE eat you, and you fought your way from the inside out; finally using the vile creature as armor??" Backfire pauses, stroking his chin with a forefinger. "BRILLIANT!" Back to Avarice, "Nah, you're beard is LAME by comparison." Pause. "I mean, if your'e into that sort of thing." Contrail detaches one of the arms of the costume, and she protests, "I was promoted for losing a briefcase full of sensitive materials!" Then she squints at Backfire and demands, "Are you a facial hair sympathiser? Could you Seeker up and kill Franklin Cross FOR THE EMPIRE, despite his mustache, if it comes to that?" Avarice shakes his head at Backfire, "At least you can recognize Scourge..." and then back to Contrail, "An interesting way to raise into the ranks of the Empire." Not that Avarice would ever dare to question Galvatron's decision. Ignore all the facial hair talk he ask, "I, for once, agree with Backfire here. How did you end up like this?" "Could I?" Backfire is taken aback, adding a bit of theatrics by covering his open mouth with a hand. "It would bring me GREAT pleasure to bring Lord Galvatron the General's rotting corpse! If only to shed light on the Quintesson plot that runs behind this EDC facade." he roars. "For the Empire, of course. Not because he embarrassed me or anything." "Wait, you know me?" the Seeker blinks at Avarice, "Who are you?" Contrail is not questioning Galvatron's choice, either. Especially because he had a big stick in his hand when she got that promotion. There could have been impaling involved if she'd gotten uppity. She demands of Backfire, "Oh yeah? And what about WRECK-GAR!?" She pulls off the other arms of the costume. Sighing, Contrail explains, "I was trying to scare a teenage farmer off his farm into a cave in the swamp to demoralise the humans and ruin their food production chain. Next time, I may mutilate some cows. Maybe write a message in a corn field." Avarice sighs, apparently starting to lose patience, "Listen...in case you forgot, I was involved in the Belgium business a few cycles ago. You were there. Get your memory circuits checked while you're here." Turning to face Contrail, he comments, "A plan worthy of you." It isn't clear if he's sincere or not, "Did it work?" "Wait, that was you? I thought it was Revenant." Backfire scratches his headplate, optics rolling. "Again, why don't you guys have name cards or something??" Turning towards Contrail, "Of course! His beard sucks anyways." Pause. "I mean, if you're into rating that kinda stuff." "Oh, yeah, definitely!" Contrail enthuses, "That kid's not going to be picking any tomatoes for days, I'm sure." She yanks the torso off the costume, adding it to the growing pile of tree parts. Contrail pauses a moment and squints at Avarice closely, rubbing her chin. After a long moment, she says slowly, "So you're... Avarice, right? You've got kind of... this tiny hint of a sparkle to your paint, or am I just imagining it? You know, like really expensive cars?" Avarice nods at Contrail, "I am Avarice. He must be feeling the powers Unicron bestowed onto me. And no," he turns his head to look at Backfire, "I am not Revenant. Learn to make the difference." "Wait, you.. sparkle??" Backfire leans in close, staring at Avarice's armor plating. Contrail makes a mental note to at least /try/ to pick out Avarice the next time she sees him. She's pretty sure she gave him a medal? Or was what Harlequin? Argh. She pulls off one DARK TREE leg and adds it to the pile. "I kind of think he does? It's really subtle, though." She might just have swamp water in her optics. Avarices optics flare. The sweep extends his hand towards Backfire, summoning his draining power which are visible as a kind of redish glow around his hand, "Grab my hand, I will show you how to do it." Somehow this sounds like a really bad idea. "Wait, huh?" Backfire's head raises to meet Avarice's glare, then his outstretched hand. Shrugging, he clasps a hand into the Sweep's. "Fine, but if you start skipping along or something.. you're so dead." Contrail snickers as Avarice offers his hand to Backfire. One way or the other, this ought to be funny, she reckons. Contrail finishes removing the costume and puts it away in the Evil Costume Cabinet. She's still soaked in swamp murk, though. Avarice's optics glow stronger as he starts draining Backfire's energon slowly. He doesn't intend to hurt him seriously and more importantly not obviously. After all he's not drunk enough with power to forget where they are... The Seeker's knees buckle for a moment, while energon levels quickly dip. "What in Straxus' name.." he trails, giving Avarice an angry glare. But then he's distracted, by his totally AWESOME glowing hand and forearm.. the aura seemingly extending from the Sweep's own. "Oooooooooo, sweet. Wait, I'm not going to turn into a Sweep now.. am I??" Backfire acks, yanking his arm from the shake. "I mean, a beard would be cool.. but you know." he stammers, feeling his face for any sprouting facial hair from the Sweep's 'magical' powers. "Seekers rule." Contrail points out, "Fulcrum is a Seeker with a beard. You wouldn't need to go full Sweep. Maybe just semi-Sweep." Maybe she is enjoying trolling? She grabs a bottle of soap and just dumps it over herself. Contrail needs to clean the remaining swamp muck off. Avarice mocks as he releases Backfire's hand, "Seekers rule? Fear not...seeker... only the Dark God has the power to remake one like you into a Sweep. I suppose someone could forge you a beard though...since you're into that sort of thing." "Am not." Backfire replies, somewhat disappointed that a righteous beard didn't sprout from his chin. "Secondly, the Seekers are Lord Galvatron's -trusted- Aerospace guardians.. we guard the skies, Sweep." he argues, plopping himself down on a seat. "You flying soap dishes are just.. creepy. Though style points for the sparkling armor, I guess." Contrail deadpans, "Or you could just steal Franklin Cross's mustache." She's kidding. This /should/ be pretty obvious. Contrail starts scrubbing herself down. Ugh, organic swamps are so gross. "I don't take 'trophies'." Backfire replies, though Cross' mustache is quite remarkable. Backfire totally said 'trophies' with two finger quotation marks from each hand too. Avarice grins at Backfire, "You're cannon fodder. We're elite warrior trusted with more important missions. Forged in the fire of Unicron, we're so above you that you cannot understand." The sweep smiles at Contrail, enjoying the fact that Backfire is obvious to her irony. He gestures towards her 'disguise', "Seems like a lot of work to take care of a single farmer..." "Sooooooooooo elite they didn't bother to make any of you stand out, riiiiight." Backfire cackles, his arms resting behind him on the slab. "What have the Sweeps done anyway? I mean, beside just be creepy and stuff. Hey, I almost took over Autobot City.. well, half of me." The other half, Overture, is currently seated in the brig working for Galvatron. Contrail points out, "And I'm an abomination." She is! "Great. Just remember, we /all/ got stuck together on that Atomium mission. Whatever our differences may be, we all serve the Decepticon cause. It all evens out in the smelt." What is this green stain and why won't it come out? "We killed Ultra Magnus." The Junkions brought him back but that still count! "As for more recent missions... If you don't know it's because you don't need to know." He listens to Contrail and nods, "Glory to Galvatorn!" he shouts while throwing his fist into the air. "All Hail Galvatron!" Backfire echoes the call, as is his loyal way. No, seriously. If someone shouts about Galvatron, Backfire answers. Every. Single. Time. "Ultra Magnus lives, you guys suck." he replies, growing bored. "Contrail, have you had time to look into this new Quintesson plot??" Contrail static-coughs and says quickly, "Er, didn't I assign all Intel agents with V-class punishments to survey dairy farms?" Avarice shrugs, "You could enlist the insecticons to devour their food supplies. I am sure they fleshies would hate that." "Ah, yes.. inform me of their success. I swear, General Cross and that suspicious mustache are all a Quintesson ploy to take over Earth." Backfire grates aloud. "Would that actually be a problem?" Contrails asks thoughtfully. "Let the Quintessons kill all the Autobots and EDC. Then when they're done, just shove the Quintessons down some stairs. Proverbially speaking. We win. Everyone else loses." Avarice grunts, "Quintessons..." Checking his internal chrono he adds, "I am expected elsewhere shortly. I leave you to your duty...there's something that need to be done before the Olympics." Without adding anything, the sweep heads towards the door. "Well, what if they better used the resources at hand?" Backfire muses, a flash of knowledge in what is usually a dull dimwit. "You know, like better management?" say OR, if they gave everyone squid arms. That'd be downright creeeeeeeepy. Backfire adds, "OR, if they gave everyone squid arms. That'd be downright creeeeeeeepy." Contrail reasons, "Then we'd steal the stuff they made out of the resources." Isn't that what they always do? "Oh right, yes.. for the EMPIRE!" Backfire salutes abruptly, to nothing or no one. "Excuse me, I am still checking into the disappearance of Mistress Catechism. Her prowess in Olympics past has always brough glory to our beloved faction." the Seeker states bluntly, marching towards the room's exit. Contrail tilts her head to one side and murmurs quietly, "I heard she died." Then she turns away to let Backfire leave on his fool's errand. "We shall see, I will scour the very DEPTHS of the universe for her." Backfire roars, leaving the room. It's not like she's hiding in plain sight, is it.. IS IT??